Questions tagged [nt.number-theory]

Prime numbers, diophantine equations, diophantine approximations, analytic or algebraic number theory, arithmetic geometry, Galois theory, transcendental number theory, continued fractions

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
60 votes
1 answer
6k views

What were the main ideas and gaps in Yoichi Miyaoka's attempted proof (1988) of Fermat's Last Theorem?

Out of sheer curiosity I have been reading Stewert and Tall's "Algebraic Number Theory and Fermat's Last Theorem" (2001). As it contains various bits of history, I found out to my own shame that I was ...
M.G.'s user avatar
  • 6,683
60 votes
3 answers
5k views

Can a positive binary quadratic form represent 14 consecutive numbers?

NEW CONJECTURE: There is no general upper bound. Wadim Zudilin suggested that I make this a separate question. This follows representability of consecutive integers by a binary quadratic form where ...
Will Jagy's user avatar
  • 25.3k
59 votes
1 answer
14k views

Is the Green-Tao theorem true for primes within a given arithmetic progression?

Ben Green and Terrence Tao proved that there are arbitrary length arithmetic progressions among the primes. Now, consider an arithmetic progression with starting term $a$ and common difference $d$. ...
Akela's user avatar
  • 3,579
59 votes
4 answers
7k views

Has Fermat's Last Theorem per se been used?

There is a long tradition of mathematicians remarking that FLT in itself is a rather isolated claim, attractive only because of its simplicity. And people often note a great thing about current ...
Colin McLarty's user avatar
59 votes
2 answers
3k views

A conjecture regarding prime numbers

For $n,m \geq 3$, define $ P_n = \{ p : p$ is a prime such that $ p\leq n$ and $ p \nmid n \}$ . For example : $P_3= \{ 2 \}$ $P_4= \{ 3 \}$ $P_5= \{ 2, 3 \}$, $P_6= \{ 5 \}$ and so on. Claim: $...
BR Pahari's user avatar
  • 623
59 votes
3 answers
5k views

Relaxed Collatz 3x+1 conjecture

The Collatz $3x+1$ conjecture claims that any positive integer can eventually be reduced to $1$ by iterative application of the maps $x \mapsto 3x+1$ whenever $x$ is odd and $x \mapsto x/2$ whenever $...
Max Alekseyev's user avatar
58 votes
6 answers
6k views

Has decidability got something to do with primes?

Note: I have modified the question to make it clearer and more relevant. That makes some of references to the old version no longer hold. I hope the victims won't be furious over this. Motivation: ...
abcdxyz's user avatar
  • 2,744
58 votes
9 answers
15k views

Learning Class Field Theory: Local or Global First?

I've noticed that there seem to be two approaches to learning class field theory. The first is to first learn about local fields and local class field theory, and then prove the basic theorems about ...
David Corwin's user avatar
  • 15.1k
58 votes
2 answers
4k views

For a finite set A of positive reals, prove that the set A + A - A contains at least as many positive as negative elements

I am currently working on a proof that would need to use the following theorem that I cannot prove: "Let $A$ be a finite set of positive real numbers. Then, the set $A + A - A$ contains at least ...
Timo Reichert's user avatar
58 votes
3 answers
4k views

What is the geometry of an undecidable diophantine equation?

As an arithmetic algebraic geometer of the highest moral fiber, I am trained to look at Diophantine equations in terms of the geometry of the corresponding scheme. For instance, if the Diophantine ...
Will Sawin's user avatar
  • 135k
58 votes
2 answers
4k views

"Gross-Zagier" formulae outside of number theory

The Gross-Zagier formula and various variations of it form the starting point in most of the existing results towards the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. It relates the value at $1$ of the ...
Bruno Joyal's user avatar
  • 3,860
58 votes
0 answers
3k views

Grothendieck's Period Conjecture and the missing p-adic Hodge Theories

Singular cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology are both functors from the category of smooth projective algebraic varieties over $\mathbb Q$ to $\mathbb Q$-vectors spaces. They come with the ...
Will Sawin's user avatar
  • 135k
57 votes
5 answers
20k views

Can the Riemann hypothesis be undecidable?

The question is contained in the title; I mean the standard axioms ZFC. The wiki link: Riemann hypothesis. There are finite algorithms allowing one to decide if there are non-trivial zeroes of the $\...
Shaqq's user avatar
  • 579
57 votes
3 answers
5k views

Number of elements in the set $\{1,\cdots,n\}\cdot\{1,\cdots,n\}$

Let $A_n=\{a\cdot b : a,b \in \mathbb{N}, a,b\leq n\}$. Are there any estimates for $|A_n|$? Will it be $o(n^2)$?
Kamalakshya's user avatar
57 votes
2 answers
7k views

What arithmetic information is contained in the algebraic K-theory of the integers

I'm always looking for applications of homotopy theory to other fields, mostly as a way to make my talks more interesting or to motivate the field to non-specialists. It seems like most talks about ...
David White's user avatar
  • 29.4k
57 votes
3 answers
5k views

Every prime number > 19 divides one plus the product of two smaller primes?

This is a part of my answer to this question I think it deserves to be treated separately. Conjecture Let $A$ be the set of all primes from $2$ to $p>19$. Let $q$ be the next prime after $p$. ...
user avatar
56 votes
4 answers
5k views

Are there refuted analogues of the Riemann hypothesis?

The classical Riemann Hypothesis has famous analogues for function fields and finite fields which have been proved. It has by now very many analogues, many of them still open. Are there important ...
Colin McLarty's user avatar
55 votes
14 answers
19k views

'Important' applications of p-adic numbers outside of algebra (and number theory).

Surely, $\mathbb{Z}_p$ and $\mathbb{Q}_p$ (and their extensions) are very important for algebra and number theory. Do they have any important applications outside of algebra (that I could easily ...
55 votes
5 answers
35k views

Consequences of Kirti Joshi's new preprint about p-adic Teichmüller theory on the validity of IUT and on the ABC conjecture

Today, somebody posted on the nLab a link to Kirti Joshi's preprint on the arXiv from last month: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.11635 In that preprint, Kirti Joshi claims that he agrees with Scholze and ...
Madeleine Birchfield's user avatar
55 votes
5 answers
9k views

How do we know that Fermat wrote his famous note in 1637?

It is widely stated that Fermat wrote his famous note on sums of powers ("Fermat's last theorem") in, or around, 1637. How do we know the date, if the note was only discovered after his death, in 1665?...
Angelo's user avatar
  • 26.8k
55 votes
1 answer
3k views

A mysterious connection between primes and $\pi$

The Prime Number Theorem relates primes to the important constant $e$. Here I report my following surprising discovery which relates primes to $\pi$. Conjecture (December 15, 2019). Let $s(n)$ be ...
Zhi-Wei Sun's user avatar
  • 14.4k
55 votes
3 answers
3k views

Is there an odd-order group whose order is the sum of the orders of the proper normal subgroups?

For a finite group G, let |G| denote the order of G and write $D(G) = \sum_{N \triangleleft G} |N|$, the sum of the orders of the normal subgroups. I would like to call G "perfect" if D(G) = 2|G|, ...
Tom Leinster's user avatar
  • 27.2k
55 votes
4 answers
4k views

An interesting integral expression for $\pi^n$?

I came on the following multiple integral while renormalizing elliptic multiple zeta values: $$\int_0^1\cdots \int_0^1\int_1^\infty {{1}\over{t_n(t_{n-1}+t_n)\cdots (t_1+\cdots+t_n)}} dt_n\cdots dt_1.$...
Leila Schneps's user avatar
55 votes
3 answers
5k views

What are the higher homotopy groups of Spec Z ?

The homotopy groups of the étale topos of a scheme were defined by Artin and Mazur. Are these known for Spec Z? Certainly π1 is trivial because Spec Z has no unramified étale covers,...
Jonathan Wise's user avatar
55 votes
2 answers
19k views

What is the state of our ignorance about the normality of pi?

Famously, it is not known whether $\pi$ is a normal number. Indeed, there are far weaker statements that are not known, such as the statement that there are infinitely many 7s in the decimal expansion ...
gowers's user avatar
  • 28.7k
55 votes
1 answer
3k views

On the first sequence without triple in arithmetic progression

In this Numberphile video (from 3:36 to 7:41), Neil Sloane explains an amazing sequence: It is the lexicographically first among the sequences of positive integers without triple in arithmetic ...
Sebastien Palcoux's user avatar
54 votes
3 answers
10k views

What is precisely still missing in Connes' approach to RH?

I have read Connes' survey article http://www.alainconnes.org/docs/rhfinal.pdf and I am somewhat familiar with his classic paper on the trace formula: http://www.alainconnes.org/docs/selecta.ps Very ...
santker heboln's user avatar
54 votes
2 answers
6k views

How were modular forms discovered?

When modular forms are usually introduced, it is by: "We have the standard action of $SL(2,\mathbb Z)$ on the upper half-plane, so let us study functions which are (almost) invariant under such ...
FusRoDah's user avatar
  • 3,680
54 votes
4 answers
4k views

When do binomial coefficients sum to a power of 2?

Define the function $$S(N, n) = \sum_{k=0}^n \binom{N}{k}.$$ For what values of $N$ and $n$ does this function equal a power of 2? There are three classes of solutions: $n = 0$ or $n = N$, $N$ is odd ...
John D. Cook's user avatar
  • 5,147
54 votes
6 answers
7k views

What is the smallest unsolved Diophantine equation?

If $P=\sum_{\bf i} a_{\bf i}x^{\bf i}\in {\mathbb Z}[x_1,\dots,x_d]$, let $|P|=\sum_{\bf i}|a_{\bf i}|x^{\bf i}$ and $h(P)=|P|(2,\dots,2)$, so that there is only a finite number of $P$ with $h(P)\leq ...
Zidane's user avatar
  • 917
54 votes
6 answers
4k views

Are all zeros of $\Gamma(s) \pm \Gamma(1-s)$ on a line with real part = $\frac12$ ?

The function $\Gamma(s)$ does not have zeros, but $\Gamma(s)\pm \Gamma(1-s)$ does. Ignoring the real solutions for now and assuming $s \in \mathbb{C}$ then: $\Gamma(s)-\Gamma(1-s)$ yields zeros at: ...
Agno's user avatar
  • 4,179
54 votes
2 answers
8k views

Walsh Fourier transform of the Möbius function

This question is related to this previous question where I asked about ordinary Fourier coefficients. Special case: is Möbius nearly orthogonal to Morse August Ferdinand Möbius (November 17, 1790 – ...
54 votes
2 answers
2k views

Does every ring of integers sit inside a monogenic ring of integers?

Given a number field $K/\mathbf{Q}$ whose ring of integers $\mathcal{O}_K$ is, in general, not of the form $\mathbf{Z}[\alpha]$ (not monogenic), does there exist an extension $L/K$ which has $\mathcal{...
Eins Null's user avatar
  • 1,579
53 votes
6 answers
5k views

Siegel zeros and other "illusory worlds": building theories around hypotheses believed to be false

What are some examples of serious mathematical theory-building around hypotheses that are believed or known to be false? One interesting example, and the impetus for this question, is work in number ...
53 votes
2 answers
16k views

Why is it hard to prove that the Euler Mascheroni constant is irrational?

Philosophically why should proving that $\gamma$ is irrational (let alone transcendental) be so much harder than proving $\pi$ or $e$ are irrational?
user16557's user avatar
  • 1,513
53 votes
4 answers
3k views

When has the Borel-Cantelli heuristic been wrong?

The Borel-Cantelli lemma is very frequently used to give a heuristic for whether or not certain statements in number theory are true. For example, it gives some evidence that there are finitely many ...
Eric Naslund's user avatar
  • 11.3k
53 votes
5 answers
4k views

Distribution of square roots mod 1

I was wondering about the distribution of $\sqrt{p}$ mod $1$ this morning, as one does while brushing one's teeth. I remembered the paper of Elkies and McMullen (Duke Math. J. 123 (2004), no. 1, 95–...
Marty's user avatar
  • 13.1k
53 votes
2 answers
5k views

Prime numbers as knots: Alexander polynomial

A naive and idle number theory question from a topologist (but not a knot theorist): I have heard it said (and this came up recently at MO) that there is a fruitful analogy between Spec $\mathbb Z$ ...
Tom Goodwillie's user avatar
52 votes
1 answer
6k views

Are the primes normally distributed? Or is this the Riemann hypothesis?

Forgive my very naive question. I know next to nothing about number theory, but I'm curious about the state of the art on the distribution of primes. Let $\mathrm{Li}(x)$ be the offset logarithmic ...
Jim Belk's user avatar
  • 8,433
52 votes
1 answer
5k views

There's something strange about $\sqrt{\big(j(\tau)-1728\big)d}$

Given discriminant $d$ and j-function $j(\tau)$, I was looking at, $$F(\tau) = \sqrt{\big(j(\tau)-1728\big)d}$$ which appears in Ramanujan-type pi formulas. Let $C_d$ be the odd prime factors of the ...
Tito Piezas III's user avatar
51 votes
4 answers
17k views

How hard is it to compute the number of prime factors of a given integer?

I asked a related question on this mathoverflow thread. That question was promptly answered. This is a natural followup question to that one, which I decided to repost since that question is answered. ...
Rune's user avatar
  • 2,386
51 votes
2 answers
4k views

Polynomial with the primes as coefficients irreducible?

If $p_n$ is the $n$'th prime, let $A_n(x) = x^n + p_1x^{n-1}+\cdots + p_{n-1}x+p_n$. Is $A_n$ then irreducible in $\mathbb{Z}[x]$ for any natural number $n$? I checked the first couple of hundred ...
Tobias Kildetoft's user avatar
51 votes
3 answers
11k views

What is the difference between an automorphic form and a modular form?

This is more of a question about terminology than about math. The term "automorphic form" is clearly a generalization of the term "modular form." What is not clear is exactly which generalization it ...
David Corwin's user avatar
  • 15.1k
51 votes
5 answers
5k views

Can $N^2$ have only digits 0 and 1, other than $N=10^k$?

Pablo Solis asked this at a recent 20 questions seminar at Berkeley. Is there a positive integer $N$, not of the form $10^k$, such that the digits of $N^2$ are all 0's and 1's? It seems very unlikely,...
Scott Morrison's user avatar
51 votes
4 answers
5k views

Why do Pell equations appear in Ramanujan's pi formulas?

While answering this MSE question about the Pell equation $x^2-29y^2=1$, I noticed that certain fundamental solutions appeared in Ramanujan's famous pi formula. I. Given the fundamental unit $\...
Tito Piezas III's user avatar
51 votes
1 answer
2k views

To what extent does Spec R determine Spec of the Witt vector ring over R?

Let $R$ be a perfect $\mathbb{F}_p$-algebra and write $W(R)$ for the Witt ring [i.e., ring of Witt vectors -- PLC] on $R$. I want to know how much we can deduce about $\text{Spec } W(R)$ from ...
Hunter Brooks's user avatar
50 votes
6 answers
6k views

Intuition for the last step in Serre's proof of the three-squares theorem

Serre's A Course in Arithmetic gives essentially the following proof of the three-squares theorem, which says that an integer $a$ is the sum of three squares if and only if it is not of the form $4^m (...
Qiaochu Yuan's user avatar
50 votes
7 answers
3k views

Dividing a cake between $n-1$, $n$, or $n+1$ guests

A housewife is waiting for guests and has prepared a cake. She doesn't know how many guests will come, but it will be $n-1$, $n$, or $n+1$. What is the minimal number $f(n)$ of pieces the cake ...
Lviv Scottish Book's user avatar
50 votes
5 answers
3k views

Motivated account of the prime number theorem and related topics

Though my own research interests (described below) are pretty far from analytic number theory, I have always wanted to understand the prime number theorem and related topics. In particular, I often ...
Sarah's user avatar
  • 482
50 votes
5 answers
7k views

On Euler's polynomial $x^2+x+41$

This is an elementary question about something way outside my area of expertise. A well-known observation due to Euler is that the polynomial $P(x)=x^2+x+41$ takes on only prime values for the first ...
Allen Hatcher's user avatar